Latest / Two Girls and a Cup of Wellness / Life After Breast Cancer: Reclaiming & Rebuilding with Gina Martin | Ep 40
Transcript
- Marie: You were diagnosed with breast cancer it changed you to create this beautiful program, Own Your Next. Tell me when did that light bulb go off for you when you're like, yes, I I have this is what I have to do. This is what I have to do. Gina: Yeah. And thank you for that question, by the way. And I love when you're saying, the light bulb moment. I think it was something that, for me, obviously it was born from my own experience, going through breast cancer. And, you know, I had I think I was lucky enough that I have done coach training prior to experiencing breast cancer, which I feel it helped me, you know. probably have a much better mindset and presence through my my journey. But one of the things when as I was going through treatment that I didn't realize is that when you're going through treatment, there's so much focus on helping me survive, right? It would there was so much focus, people helping me, just getting me through that, stage of getting to the the remission piece, right? Getting me to survive the process. And obviously that that's where the focus should be, right? You will want that. And I was so grateful for the incredible team that I had by my side. But what I really wasn't prepared Marie: It wasn't good. Gina: for was what happened afterwards. You know, your body has been through so much. Your, you know, probably your priorities at that point at point might have changed, your values change, and sometimes you quite don't even recognize the woman that you were before. I know of this is happening where people around you are celebrating you because you're done with treatment. There's almost this expectation of now it's it's time to go back to normal. But the reality is that internally you might still be trying to figure out what life looks like now. And for me, one of the things that I experienced was there was a huge lack of confidence when it was time to get back into rebuilding my business. I had become an entrepreneur right before getting diagnosed and once I finished I had to rebuild the business. And for me, one of the things that fell is I almost felt like because I taken the t 14 months to to take care of myself to heal, to go through the intensive amount of treatment I went through, I felt like there was a disconnect, like even like my strengths, my my capabilities, like I almost felt like they weren't there. So, as an executive coach, I started thinking after going through that phase, right? The the work that I do is I usually help people navigate through major transitions. And I think what I saw is okay, why aren't we bringing that to support women after cancer? So I Marie: Yeah. Gina: think that that to me was, it was so hard for me. I would say probably took me like a year to kind of rebuild. and feel like I could be empowered to build my business again, I wanted to shorten that cycle. I wanted to bring that coaching support through women to women survivors. And that's when I decided to create On Your Next. And we're a nonprofit organization that provides coaching, community, and leadership development for women after cancer at absolutely no cost to them. Marie: This is fantastic. And we've heard this rec like recurring trend with different cancer survivors and thrivers that they're almost lost. Yeah. You know, and when one of the ladies we interviewed, it took her second time of getting cancer to be like, all right, this has got to stop. I have to change. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. It's it's because it's it is true in the beginning of your cancer journey, your soul your sole focus is to get the cancer out and to become NED, right? Known evidence of disease. But then it's like then, but what next? I remember feeling the same exact thing of feeling lost. And, you know, everybody is so excited. And and there is an I I don't want to say necessarily an expectation, but there is this concept of all your loved ones thinking, okay, well, the cancer's out. Great. Let's celebrate. And and there is so much to celebrate, but life what you know it from before is no longer the same life. So you have to adapt and understand yourself better and start to make different changes in your lifestyle and how you show up in the world because you're a different person. You just went through, Gina: You are. Marie: like, you know, in a lot of cases, hell and back, right? So this is so needed. Gina: Yeah. I think also it it isn't, I think that the challenge is that cancer doesn't impact just your physical health, right? Which immediately that's where we go to. And most of the people that are helping you and surrounding you, they just want to get you there, but they don't realize for me, it impacted my finances, right? My my business. It impacts your relationships. It it everything about you, your confidence, everything gets impacted. It. So your mental state, your spirituality, because at some point you even start questioning, right? Depending on how how close you are and attuned to whatever you know spirituality you believe in, everything gets questioned. And it's almost like there's a need for almost rewriting. I think the other piece too is a lot of people fear that they can't trust their bodies. I that wasn't my experience per se, is because I think for me. I was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer and ended up having stage three, stage one, double massectomy, had thirty-one lymph nodes removed, thirty of them had cancer. So it was extensive surgery after surgery and chemo, radiation. So how I felt about my body was thank you, body. Thank you for withstanding everything I went through. Thank you for everything you're doing. And that was my experience, right? So for me. There was a lot of gratitude towards what my body could stand and bounce back from. But for many women, they start questioning if they can even trust their bodies again because it has failed them. Right? So every woman's journey, which by the way is so important, a lot of times people think that because you're going to breast cancer, it puts you in a bucket, but it's not. Every single woman I met experiences breast cancer so differently, different diagnosis, different treatment, different reactions to drugs. And I think that, this is why it's so important to realize there's there's gotta be that support for after. There's gotta be that, how do we help women rebuild? A lot of the participants we have today in the program are even facing challenges, reintegrating back into work because their world cultures can support their needs and they don't understand their needs. So there's just so much beyond cancer. that happens for women and we're just hoping to bring a little bit of a light to that process. Marie: And I I love when you said the gratitude, right? Having gratitude for your body. And to to piggyback off of that, there also needs to be an acceptance, right? It is what it is, right? We went through what we went through. and this is everything in life. And I I feel like I say that so much in every episode because our story was just breast cancer, but your story could be a a diagnosis or somebody that you know or love, right? It's it doesn't Everything that we talk about, any type of traumatic situation, it's it's basically all the same underlying ways to heal through it. And I think that acceptance is another huge piece of the puzzle that needs to be looked at. And what's interesting is like I think people think, okay, well, you you're no longer have cancer. then you could just get right back to it. But the The acceptance acceptance portion of it is so overlooked that we just we gotta, we gotta, we gotta accept what is, then we can move forward, right? And it's just one step at a time. And it's not, it's different for everybody. And how we're going to enter back into the world is different for everybody. So if if we have some beautiful women listening right now, give yourself some grace. Try to just, you know, put your hand on heart, hand on belly. Say thank you, body, for what you're doing for me now. I accept what is right now. And I can move forward one day at a time, one foot in front of the other. Mm-hmm. And men. Men get breast cancer too. And men. And again, it's not even just breast cancer, right? It's it's everything. I think this goes for anything. Anything in life. Gina: Yeah, anything we experience. Acceptance is, I would say probably the foundation. I think it starts with self-awareness and then acceptance. Because if we don't accept, we can't just, we can't move forward. It's a lot of the work that we do in coaching is helping people accept where they're at. Because a lot of our stress is generating by worrying about the past or the future, right? And I think acceptance and presence, the more present we are in the moment, the more we realize that what we have is today. the it easier it is for us to accept, the path to move forward. and I think, you know, for women who are experiencing something like breast cancer, acceptance of their body. That was huge for me. Your Marie: Huge. Gina: self-image and in your body. That was something like I remember yeah, especially for us women, right? Because there's so much around Marie: So important for women, right? Yeah. Right. Everything. Yeah. Gina: how we present ourselves and even listen for me, even having long hair gives me confidence, right? Being able to wear a certain type of clothes give me confidence. So I think we all view our self image a little bit differently, but it's impacted tremendously when we go through something like this. The fact that, I lost all my hair. I was bull completely. I still will walk around with my bowl head and no shame and own dead. But it it Marie: Sure, you're Gina: thank you. But you know, I think After when you look at the scars and when you look at you know your new image, having the acceptance, right, of what that looks like and almost looking looking at the scars are like, Hey, these are my word, you know, this is the evidence of the words that I won, right? And and be yeah. Marie: It took me while. It took me a while to be able to look at my scars and my breasts. And it's funny you say that about like just the the body image. I had a really tough time personally in my journey making the decision on if I'm gonna go flat or do implants because I was just one person that never wanted implants. And that decision in itself was a very difficult decision. And looking at my body and the the the couple scars that I have. It took me a while. And that is a definitely a theme that I hear from from a lot of women who have been in our shoes. because Gina: Mm. Marie: and but you know, like for me, the reason why I wanted to go with implants, I live in Florida. I mean, I'm 90% of the time, I'm either in a sports bra, a bathing suit, or definitely tank tops, right? Like I just it made me feel better to to do that than flat. All is beautiful, and as long as your situation and your decision was made out of alignment of what feels right for you, all is beautiful. I'm not saying that flat is not beautiful, but for me to to do small implants was the right way to go. But still nonetheless, the body image is a very tough, tough part of the journey that I don't think, you know, doctors don't talk about. Gina: Yeah. And what's you know, really sad is that even women who haven't gone through breast cancer suffer through body image image is Marie: Mm. Gina: issues. So it is something that touches a lot of us as women. And I think anything that we can do to continue to empower women to accept themselves, their bodies as they are, and to capitalize on their strengths, their capabilities, their you know, they're beautiful. gifts they bring to the world, I think is so important. I think that's probably probably what I love the coaching so much because I think for me, empowering clients to see everything they have to give to others beyond their job titles, beyond their, you know, physical appearance, I think is such such a meaningful work for me. Marie: I see a lot on social media too, a lot of women who maybe a little bit bigger, but the confidence that they have and they put out onto their post and their information that they put out into the world. So seeing having our our young girls see some of these beautiful, strong, bigger women, both in just in in sports and in yoga and in anything. I think is empowering and I think strong is better than s skinny. Skinny. And I don't not better. I shouldn't that wasn't the right word, but it's becoming more welcomed and accepted. Of like, no, strong is amazing. We don't necessarily just need to be skinny, but we need to be strong too. or you know, either or but can be healthy. You can be eighty pounds and have terrible lipid profiles and bad metabolic health. I mean, I see it. So I don't know. Yeah. It's always about what's on the inside too. Yeah. Yeah. And loving yourself, right? There's that sense of just love and appreciation and acceptance and gratitude for who you are, who we are as a, you know, individual and as a whole. so that's so beautiful. So let's go back to the the program a little bit. So Tell us a little bit more about your foundations, some of the the things that you're helping some of these beautiful women move through. Gina: Yeah, fantastic. And you know, the way we structure the program is an eight-week coaching program and they receive group coaching. So there they come together, we have beautiful topics, and then they also get to participate as community, but then they also get individualized one-on-one coaching, which is incredible. so we developed the program with three faces in mind. So the first phase is reclaiming. This is who I am now. So this is about helping women reconnect with their identity, their voice, their values, and what matters most to them. And then we invite them to explore, you know, beyond that diagnosis, right? And beyond like all the roles they've held in the past. Like who do they want to be now? and then the second phase is about rebuilding. So now it's like, okay, what do I want to feel capable of doing again? Right. How do we focus on rebuilding the confidence, the self-trust, the sense of of agency, right? And advocacy. Because I think as women we have to continue to do that for ourselves. And you got Marie: Sorry, we gotta parking here. Gina: a dog in the house here in the Marie: She's the cutest. She's like our little mascot. She's just We'll try to get we'll try to get her on Anyways. Sorry about that. Gina: She coming on camera. I don't know. She might be missing Marie. I love it. Anyway. Yeah. So, no, totally. So, so second phase is rebuilding, and then the third phase is rising. This is almost like, okay, what do I want my my next chapter to look like? So, this is where we help women begin to kind of move forward. And the beautiful thing about the program is that it's not. This is not a career transition program or a leadership. This is more of a personal journey. Because you know, you probably know you've met a lot of women survivors. Like a lot of people decide to do things that are completely different after going through an experience with cancer or any major transition they might have in their lives. So some women might decide to stay home or to be more creative or to launch businesses. And I think we've made the program flexible enough to empower them to rewrite whatever the next chapter is for them. Marie: Love that. And we love seeing what comes out after cancer. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's amazing what more because it gives you that opportunity to say, wait a minute, something wasn't working before in life. What can I change now? It's it's it can be like a reset and a restart, right? And just exploring that, even having the the wherewithal to just explore and to consider it. And doesn't necessarily mean you need to. leave a relationship or leave a job, but you get to choose how how is my future going? What is my future gonna look like, right? How am I gonna show up in the world from here on out of this as this new amazing person that I am? Gina: I love I love that and I'm and I'm happy that you're bringing that forward because you know for women most of us I are always or we're you know before something like this we were always the one carrying the weight We carry the weight of the world, let's just face it, right? All of us women. Marie: We bring the world into the world and then we carry it. Gina: Yeah, we make it go around and then we carry it. Marie: Yeah. Gina: But I think what happens and and I experienced this is like we're so used to taking care of each of of other people, right? And putting other p people's priority, first, before our own priorities, that, you know, what happens after you experience something like this is, by the way, which is something really hard. There were two big changes that I had to make myself and I'm still working on them. But I think the first one was you don't have to return to the woman who you were. Okay. And I think that we forget that. I and when we f when we first finish treatment, I think there is that want of like going back to doing things, but that didn't work. Just like you said, Chrissy. Maybe that was not working. And it's probably what you got sick. I think for me, I had a 20 years of leadership experience with like high performing teams, high pressure roles. I was under a lot of stress most of the time. I knew for me. That wasn't a life I wanted to go back to. And I I had already started building something different for myself. But I think it's important that we realize is like, what was it that wasn't serving us? And maybe it was a lack of boundaries. Maybe it was not feeling in power enough to say no. That's another thing that we struggle with. We have a hard time saying no, right? So I think boundaries, saying no, and then prioritizing ourselves. We cannot care for others if we're not caring for ourselves. I rewrote my whole self-care, what that looked like after, right? What that meant for me. So I think that that's something important for women to think about when they're re rebuilding. And by the way, this could be even rebuilding after a divorce, rebuilding after Marie: Yeah, right. Gina: a career transition, right? Because something has to change. And the other piece for me is I was for me, achievement my whole life was my number one value. High achiever. And that was ingrained in growing up, right? I would come home with the straight A's and I was rewarded for that. So that, you know, created that pattern in my head of always achievement. And I had Marie: Mm-hmm. Gina: to rewrite that because it wasn't gonna serve me after cancer, right? It was not what really mattered to me the most. And I think that that's something that every woman should have an opportunity to do every so often in their life: rewrite the rule book. Why do I need to keep operating in a way that doesn't serve me anymore? Marie: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Alignment, right? Being in alignment. What feels right for you in that moment? So beautiful. Yeah. Mm. The su I don't Gina: Coming up for you, Marie. I see your whales your wheels turning there. Marie: That's right. I just made a career change Gina: That's the coach of me, by the Marie: in March, actually. I started my own company with a colleague of mine. So it's it's it's in the days of I'm like, why am I doing this again? But you know, stepping away from conventional medicine and doing something a little bit different, it's hard, right? Change is hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm always learning. I'm always Gina: Mm. Congratulations. Marie: learning. But yeah, it's good. You forty eight years old, what am I doing? Yeah, but you, you know, you're balancing that and younger kids and you know, all the things that we're all that we've all done. I'm tired of going through the motions. I I enjoy saying to people like, let's stay healthy, like, let's stay healthy, be healthy. And that's your passion. Yeah, that's my passion. Yeah. And you're good at it. Gina: Well, if you think about it, it's almost like you're going from reactive medicine to proactive medicine, Of how huh? Yeah. Yeah. Congrats. Marie: Right. I love that. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I do love it. So Yeah. Yeah. I know. It's so good. And maybe I'll write a book. I think you just my brain. And then maybe I'll do this. Yeah. Maybe I'll start Her brain does go ding ding ding ding ding ding. Gina: Wait, that's entrepreneurship. us entrepreneurs we're always chasing shiny objects. Okay. That's the you know, I coach a lot of entrepreneurship shiny object syndrome. Marie: Yes. I was at a conference the other day, Stop chasing the shiny objects and I'm like, maybe I want to learn about that. Study that. No, from focus, Marie, focus. But I know. Gina: Yeah. But it's the beautiful thing, you get to you get to step into creativity. And I think when we have corporate jobs, when we have jobs that are designed for us and not by us, Marie: Yeah. Gina: we get to live by the rules and now you have the space to really be creative. Marie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's great. It's good for the brain. Mm-hmm. One of the things that I've I've kind of done that was really different than before is is my having slower mornings. You know, and there are some mornings like the last few mornings I've gotten up and I didn't rush out of the house, even though I got up super early. I went out into my garage and I did a little bit of yoga and some breath work and journaling and, you know, really enjoying my coffee and not just rushing out of the house. For me, that is a a huge thing. I really enjoy having a slow morning and waking up before the rest of the house wakes up. Important stress physiology and well being. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Gina: And you know what, Chrissy, I think that that's so important, but it is hard to accept. And I'm and Marie: Yeah. Gina: I'm gonna I'm gonna share something with you. It's you know, I used to wake up five and do all kinds of things before I head up to the job at seven, then work seven to seven, came back and did more, whatever. You know, so you live in this world where you're just always doing, doing, doing, doing. And after, I did realize after my experience with cancer, like, yeah, those mornings took a little longer to get going, right? And you know, I did want it to enjoy. But the problem is that because we're so ingrained in the way we were doing things before, that sometimes we judge that space. And I and I think that is so important because something that I see in women as I see what our participants are going through the program right now is I see that they're even they even have expectations of themselves. To perform the way they did before. And Marie: Yeah. Gina: you're not the same, right? You're impact. for me, I had an estrogen receptive tripod cancer. So I was immediately put in drugs to stop estrogen production production. So pretty much it launched me into, you know, menopause, even before I experienced pre-menopause, right? So, you know, think about all those changes and how that impacts. So, how can I expect myself to operate? The same way before. But we do because that's unfortunately our nature. And I think being going back to this whole idea of self-love and kindness to yourself, you have to understand where you're at and the space that you need to really, Marie: Yeah. Gina: be able to do. So what I used to do before, I don't. Now I work probably my productive hours or, seven hours a day. And then at eight o'clock, I like it's like the batteries get plugged out, p plugged out, there's no more Marie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gina: energy. And I have to be comfortable with accepting that. And and I think it's hard sometimes for women. Marie: Think a really beautiful practice for well, we'll just say women after breast cancer, is that's what we're primarily talking about. But anybody, there's something is is to almost imagine this beautiful women, woman that you were prior to, and hold space for her and love on her. And it with whether it's through visualization or just meditation and just imagining that you're holding her hand and we're like, we're. We're gonna change and we're gonna be okay. And we're gonna become this beautiful woman who does take slower mornings and does shut off the computer at eight o'clock at night and doesn't say yes to absolutely everything because that's not serving us. So it's almost like you're holding space for this beautiful person that you were before, but and you're making it safe in your nervous system to be able to make that change as well. Right. It's kind of a little bit of that inner inner child healing work, but Four doesn't necessarily be need to be child. It could be yourself at any stage of the game, right? At any age. So that could be a really beautiful practice, an emotional practice, I'm sure, in the beginning, but a beautiful practice. Gina: And think for everyone, I think if we go back to the theme of wellness overall, right? The spies having been diagnosed or not with a serious illness, how do we encourage women, right, to do more of this before it's actually a need? Right. How do we help Marie: Yeah. Right. Gina: them be proactive and how do we almost help change the mindset of society itself? That I think, you know, this whole idea of like, work-life balance that doesn't exist anymore. It's more like work work life mo hammered I'm sorry, harmony today, right? Like I think it's important that we think about how do we continue to influence even the the generations of the future to see self-care and well being and wellness as a way of being and not just something you do when you need it. That's when it all starts Marie: Right. Yeah. Gina: because I I do feel that if you know Th that all me would have known everything I know now, of course, things would have been a little bit different. And it wasn't for me, it wasn't nutrition or anything like that. It was more stress related, you know, putting ourselves in that position where we don't ask for help or we don't set the boundaries or we won't protect our energy. Like all of those things are so important. And I think for any woman that might be listening, just in the tame of well being. So important that you think about what does it mean to you? Because well being and self-care to you, Chrissy or Marie or myself is so different. But I think it's important that we take the time to define that for ourselves and to start seeing, how do I make that a priority? And for me, self-care is part of my business plan, by the way. That's how I drive my business, right? Those practices are embedded there before. Because, Marie: Right. Mm-hmm. Gina: you know, think about it, we do a lot of work. supporting people. I know both of you do as well, right? And providing for others. And that's where it's important. We cannot show up at our best if we're not feeling at our best ourselves. So protecting our energy, Marie: Right. Gina: right? Protecting how we feel. I I have made so much more courageous decisions after cancer around the people I hang out with and where do I invest my time and who gets to come. I'm I'm at dinner table, it's it's very different now than it was before. Right. And I Marie: Mm-hmm. Gina: think we we owe that to all of us, even beyond any diagnosis, to really think about what matters to us and protecting that. Marie: Yeah, I love that. So beautiful. So beautiful. It's so true. So everybody listening right now, this is your reminder. Slow down a little bit. Check in with yourself and ask yourself the question: what does self-care, what does harmony, what does self-love and compassion mean to you? And what little changes can you start to do daily to dedicate to that? And it's not just about doing the self care routine on your face, but that could be it for you too, right? Just turning that switch off. Sometimes it's just picking up a a novel and reading for twenty minutes and losing your mind in a really good book. Right. And not a book that you're learning from. Or the other day when we were having some technical difficulties, I said, I I just have to lay down. Like just go lay down and close my eyes for ten minutes. And that was so rejuvenating. Because I was we were super stressed out with all these wires and stuff that weren't working. Gina: Ha ha ha. Marie: You know, but deep breathing and all that. And sometimes I'll breathe before I speak with a patient just to clear my brain for five minutes and just clear it and then go in with a fresh perspective. Mm. Love that. Gina: It's it's so true. And for me as a coach, I I always Marie: I Gina: think around how do I protect my energy? because you are, you know, I'm sure therapists experience this way more than coaches. But at the end of the day, you know, whoever works in a in a position where you have to care for others in some way or the other or provide support for others, that consumes your a lot, right? So you gotta protect Marie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so yeah. Gina: that, give yourself the space. Marie: Bubble. What do you put around yourself? A bubble? I put a bubble. Yeah. I step into a little bubble. Gina: E pro favor. Marie: A little energetic bubble and it's strong and it is so protectant and nobody's negative energy can get in. It is like bulletproof and that is my thing. That's a song too. Yes. We were singing earlier. We were singing like everything that we were saying. We would just sing. So Gina: Chrissy, I can see your huge into visa visualization because now I'm like, okay, wait a minute, I see myself in this bubble now. I'm gonna have to take that to my clients. Marie: I do that with a lot of my clients too, especially some of the clients that I know are in tune with their energy. And they're like, Someone's just getting to me this. I'm like, well, okay. Did you put your cloak on? Did you put yourself in that bubble? Did you protect yourself today? No. Okay. Well, try that. Try it out. I know it may sound woo woo to some people, but truth of the matter is, is like you the What you see and what you do is what you experience. So if you are going to just talk to your energy and do connect with your energy that day and say, you know what, listen, we're only all about good energy. I am not like dysregulating myself to drop down to anybody else low level stuff. I am gonna just show up the way I'm gonna show up and nobody's gonna bother me. And and if somebody does, then you know what? That's when you certain you have certain tools like your breath work. Gina: Yeah. Marie: grounding, just stepping away and Yeah, singing. There's so many things that we could do. It's just a matter of what feels aligned to you. Right. It just it just boils down to that. Yeah. So Gina: It does. I can see the energy is something you're really big in. And I talk to my clients a lot about energy. And you know, you'd be surprised also that you attract the energy that you put out. So when you start that morning exactly how you're describing, that's gonna help you attract the right people. Marie: all this energy talk is getting our computer and the Wi Fi all excited. And we wanna end on a high energetic, high vibin note here. So Thank you, Gina. This is lovely. Yeah. Gina: thank you. I love the the back and forth and the and the casual conversation. Marie: it was beyond meaningful. I think you are such a gift in the world in general, and then also even more so in the breast cancer world and all of the beautiful women that you are serving and this this beautiful program that you have created for women to heal through their breast cancer journey, right? Past the physical and into the the emotional and the energetic healing. So Kudos to you, my friend, and thank you so, so much. Gina: Thank you. I appreciate the time and Marie, I can't wait to meet you in person and and I love to stay connected and let's see where we go from here. And please, if you know anyone that could use our program, send them our way. We have a cohort starting in January and we're just accepting applications now. So I appreciate the platform and the opportunity to share my thoughts and my journey with you both and your audience. Thank you. Marie: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right guys, until next time. Bye.